The present invention relates generally to performance guide apparatus and programs which, in a performance of an electronic keyboard instrument, visually indicate, to a human player, information necessary for the keyboard instrument performance, such as keys to be depressed and respective depression timing of the keys. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved performance guide apparatus and program for providing a visual performance guide display that not only allows a human player to intuitively predict with ease each key to be next depressed and depression timing of the key but also is enjoyable to see so that the human player can enjoy playing the keyboard instrument.
Performance guide apparatus and programs have been known which visually indicate, to a human player who plays an electronic musical instrument provided with a keyboard as a performance operator section (i.e., electronic keyboard instrument), each key to be depressed (i.e., each position to be operated on the keyboard) and depression timing of the key. Various types of such performance guide apparatus for visually indicating, to a human player, keys to be depressed and respective depression timing of the keys have been proposed, an example of which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication Nos. 2000-081882 or 2002-372967. In the performance guide apparatus disclosed in the No. 2000-081882 publication, a display device, having a linear array of a plurality of display elements (e.g., LEDs) provided in corresponding relation to the keys of the keyboard, is disposed near the keyboard; such a display device will hereinafter be referred to as “linear display device” for convenience of description. In the disclosed performance guide apparatus, the display elements corresponding to the keyboard keys are sequentially illuminated and deilluminated (i.e., turned on and off) in accordance with predetermined performance timing.
Further, in the performance guide apparatus disclosed in the No. 2002-372967 publication, a display device, having a plurality of display members provided in corresponding relation to the keys of the keyboard (such as rectangular liquid crystal display members with their respective lengths extending in the longitudinal direction of the corresponding keys, or display member comprising a plurality of display elements arranged or arrayed in the longitudinal direction of the corresponding keys), is disposed near the keyboard; such a display device will hereinafter be referred to as “planar display device” for convenience of description. In the disclosed apparatus, a performance guide is provided by scrolling the display on the display member, corresponding to the key to be depressed, in the longitudinal direction of the key in accordance with performance timing of that key to thereby visually indicate depression timing of the key.
However, with the first-mentioned conventional performance guide by the linear display device having the plurality of linearly-arranged display elements, the display elements, disposed at positions corresponding to the keys to be depressed, are merely illuminated in accordance with the depression timing, and thus, it is difficult for the human player to know in advance each key to be next depressed and depression timing of the key. Consequently, performance operation by the human player tends to become discrete and clumsy or unsmooth operation, like a “whack-a-mole game”, where the human player merely depresses each key to be next depressed in accordance with the illumination of the corresponding display element. Thus, the conventional performance guide would present the problem that performance operation by the human player can hardly become smooth and can not improve satisfactorily. The second-mentioned conventional performance guide by the planar display device having the plurality of display members is advantageous in that the human player can easily know in advance each key to be next depressed and depression timing of the key, but this performance guide would present the inconvenience that, because only scrolling the display tends to be very boring and unenjoyable, it is extremely difficult to allow the human player, such as a child or beginner in particular, to enjoy playing the keyboard with interest for a considerably long time.
Further, because the aforementioned conventional performance guide technique via the linear display device or planar display device merely indicates the key to be next depressed and depression timing of the key, it is difficult from the conventional performance guide technique to provide a clear visual performance guide display for a special rendition style, such as cross-under-fingering, cross-over-fingering or approach-fingering, that is performance operation intended to achieve a smoother performance.